EME (full text) is a proposed technological standard for
Web-based Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), digital
handcuffs that video-streaming services use to micromanage users'
access to legitimately obtained media. As Web users asserted while
protesting the W3C's meeting this March, DRM is coercive,
disempowering and insulting to users. It also causes broad collateral
damage to the health of our digital society. DRM's dark history —
from the Sony rootkit malware to
draconian anti-circumvention laws — demonstrates that
integrating it into Web standards would be nothing but bad for the
Web's users. It is predicted to stymie security research, curtail
privacy, freedom, and accessibility, and set back the interoperability
that is necessary for innovation on the Web. There is considerable
dissent about EME within the W3C — staff member Harry Halpin has
pledged to resign if it becomes an official standard.

Defective by Design is the FSF's campaign against DRM in all its
forms and the aegis for its work against EME. Campaigns manager Zak
Rogoff made this statement:

"The W3C and its director, Tim Berners-Lee, are abdicating their
responsibility — as stated in their official design principles
— to put users first in the design of the Web. We had hoped that
Berners-Lee would uphold the vision of inclusion and empowerment
that he articulated in his famous Tweet about the Web: 'This is for
everyone.' But by allowing EME to continue, he has given license to
Netflix, Google and media owners to warp the Web so that it works
firstly for them.

We are inspired by the worldwide network of activists who have
joined us in our struggle for the freedom-respecting Web we
deserve. Defective by Design will continue to escalate our campaign,
deploying new and creative forms of resistance until EME is
stopped."

The EME standardization effort, sponsored by streaming giants like
Google and Netflix, aims to take advantage of the W3C's influence over
Web technology to make it cheaper and more efficient to impose DRM
systems. As of yesterday, the EME proposal is now upgraded from
Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation within the W3C's
process. Under the W3C's rules there are at least three more chances
to pull the plug on EME before it becomes a ratified standard, also
known as a W3C Recommendation.

About Defective By Design

Defective by Design is the Free Software Foundation's campaign against
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). DRM is the practice of imposing
technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital
media, creating a good that is defective by design. DRM requires the
use of proprietary software and is a major threat to computer user
freedom. It often spies on users as well. The campaign, based at
defectivebydesign.org, organizes anti-DRM activists for in-person and
online actions, and challenges powerful media and technology interests
promoting DRM. Supporters can donate to the campaign at
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/donate.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of free (as in freedom) software — particularly the GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants — and free documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information for
journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.